Orange County, Florida commissioners have unanimously approved extending benefits to the partners of gay county employees. Via Watermark: In their pre-vote comments, many commissioners took the time to recognize Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, who led the effort in 2008 to extend benefits to same sex domestic partners of city employees, and former Orange County Commissioner Linda Stewart, who crusaded …

And he’s going to bring it back starting with Wasilla, Alaska. Because something something ring of fire! something fist of man! something abortion! Sarah Palin!

She’s totally a closeted lesbian. So says my very trusted tipster who adds this about Montana state GOP Rep. Kristin Hansen: “She lives with a woman who she introduces to others as her ‘friend’ but has confirmed to a handful of people is her partner. The partner’s ex has also been telling people what’s up.” Hansen was first elected to …

David Barton, the Seven Mountains whackjob who believes that America should be a Christianist theocracy, says that the Bible outlaws net neutrality. In fact, fairness isn’t a concept that Christians should embrace at all. This is the Fairness Doctrine applied to the Internet, and I’ll go back to what I believed for a long time is: fair is a word …

Responding to pressure from the Courage Campaign, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has agreed to become the tenth and final vote needed to advance the bill to repeal DOMA out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While the repeal effort has a reasonable chance of success in the Senate, it is, of course, doomed in the GOP-dominated House.

At yesterday’s tax day protest in New Hampshire, Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky couldn’t find a single Tea Party activist who cares about gay marriage.

“I was somewhat amused when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had just spent the last four years adding trillions to the deficit, said the U.S. Congress couldn’t afford to retain lawyers to defend DOMA now that President Obama’s DOJ surrendered to their liberal base on the issue. On the heels of the news that Congress will add another DOMA challenge …

According to a press release from the Human Rights Campaign, the GOP’s contract with the law firm hired to defend DOMA stipulates a maximum payment of $500,000. Oh, but it could be more. In order to defend discrimination by any means necessary, House Republican leaders have contracted with the law firm King & Spalding at the rate of $520 an …

Some Italians Catholics are incensed over the below 10-second cell phone ad in which a man resembling Jesus asks “Dad” for help in escaping a dominatrix. “It’s a sordid concept and incredibly insulting to those who believe in Jesus Christ,” said an editorial in Avvenire, a daily newspaper owned by the Catholic Bishops Conference. The newspaper’s editor, Marco Tarquinio, said …

The online dating site OK Cupid polled 250,000 self-identified heterosexuals to get the above result. Buzzfeed has dozens of other survey responses, any one of which would also be worthy of discussion here.

It looks like Sarah Palin is totally seriously planning to run for president. The New York Times weighs in: It was only about two weeks ago when deteriorating favorability ratings captured in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, among other things, had dampened expectations that Ms. Palin would run. As the NBC morning column “First Read” asked rhetorically then, “Time …

Frothy Mix joins Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, and Haley Barbour in pledging to reinstate DADT if elected. (Via – Towleroad)

Despite Lawrence Vs. Texas, laws specifically against gay sex remain on the books in four states. Ten other states continue to outlaw all acts of sodomy. Last month the GOP blocked an attempt to delete such a law in Montana. (Via – Matt Yglesias)

Queer Rising will protest the Catholic Church at this weekend’s NYC Easter Parade, which as evidenced by the above photo typically draws a fair amount of gay men, drag queens, and fashionistas. Queer Rising cites a recent anti-gay marriage lobbying trip to Albany by Archbishop Timothy Dolan as prompting the protest. Via press release: “It is good to see members …

In 2009 the New Delhi High Court issued a landmark ruling decriminalizing homosexuality. That judgment prompted religious and political groups to petition the Indian Supreme Court to overturn the ruling. Today the Supreme Court deferred their decision until “after summer vacations.” Senior BJP leader B P Singhal, who had approached the High Court opposing legalisation of gay sex, has challenged …

The CDC writes us this morning to note their response to the early halting of an African HIV PrEP study, which I mentioned yesterday. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) involves taking an HIV medication as a preventive to infection. The CDC expresses disappointment with the cessation of the African study, as “this approach has already been shown to be effective in reducing …

The Malaysian government has ordered 66 boys to report to a camp where they will be “trained” out of their effeminate ways in order to prevent them from becoming homosexuals. The boys between 13 and 17 years old reported Monday for what is officially being called a “self-development course” after their schoolteachers in Terengganu state identified them as students who …

In order to reduce pilfering, some hotels have begun attaching RFID chips to their towels and linens. The radio-frequency identification chips designed by Linen Technology Tracking can be put in towels, sheets and bathrobes to keep track of stock and, more importantly, to ensure their return when light-fingered guests forget their manners. The market for such items sounds well developed. …